This application relates to snow plows, agriculture equipment, construction excavator teeth, and other road machinery, and more specifically to guards, and wear resistors for the wear surfaces, i.e. blades and teeth, thereof.
Usually the heavy steel cutting or wear edges of blades, teeth, and skid shoes are expendable and can be removable, e.g., with bolts, to the bottom of, for example, a plow moldboard, backhoe bucket, grinder wheel, etc. As a blade scrapes along the pavement or ground it wears. The wear often is uneven, and the blades and teeth (cutting edges) sometimes break during plowing, digging, scraping, etc. All this maintenance and the associated downtime are costly.
The blade on typical snow plowing machines is subjected to extensive vibration, impact, and abrasive action, resulting from the scraping action between the cutting edge of the blade and the roadbed over which the machine travels. As a result, the blade edge wears and chips due to the road abrasion and impact and must be replaced every few hours. This is a costly proposition because of the down time of the machine and cost expended in manpower and materials to make a blade changeover.
It is conventional to provide to the plow or plow attachment frame caster-like wheels, mushroom shoes, or wear skid shoes which are attached to, but spaced from, the plow moldboard for the purpose of supporting part of the load on the blade. These known prior art devices are relatively bulky, expensive to manufacture, and difficult to install on the snow plow. The cast iron material typically used on the wear shoes does not provide protection against fracturing or breakage, due to the relative brittleness of cast iron, when the shoes are subjected to impacts. The shoes are expensive to maintain and replace.
Thus, there has been a need for an improved means which supports the cutting edge of, for example, a snow plow blade from the roadbed for reducing or dampening the undesirable vibrating, impact and abrasive action on the blade. The disadvantages of present wear shoe constructions have resulted in the improved skid shoe-wear surface of the present disclosure which effectively reduces blade wear and shoe replacement resulting from road abrasion. Furthermore, the present disclosure can increase blade (cutting edge) life, skid shoe life, reduce blade breakage and maintenance, and protect the moldboard, bucket or similar mounted thereto.
In one embodiment, the present disclosure relates to a skid shoe for a snow plow blade, and more particularly, to a shoe which is bolted to the plow moldboard at the pre-existing bolt holes used to fasten the blade to the moldboard. Alternatively, the skid shoe can be mounted to the plow attachment frame. The skid shoe can include a wear surface including an abrasion resistant welding deposit filling one or more cavities along, and integrated with, the wear surface. In other embodiments, the present disclosure provides wear resistors embedded within blades and teeth for improved wear resistance along the associated cutting edges.